Google today responded to Oracle’s (ORCL) claims that its Android OS infringes copyrights and patents related to Java, which Oracle acquired as part of its purchase of Sun Microsystems earlier this year. This morning, the search sovereign filed an answer to Oracle’s suit, denying all seven of its patent-infringement charges, and asking that the company’s copyright-infringement claim be dismissed because Google (GOOG) feels it is “legally deficient.”

And, interestingly, the answer calls Oracle out as a hypocrite–a company that pushed for a fully open Java platform when the OS was owned by Sun, only to blatantly ignore the open source community’s requests to fully open source it after its acquisition of Sun closed.

“It’s disappointing that after years of supporting open source, Oracle turned around to attack not just Android, but the entire open source Java community with vague software patent claims,” the company said in a statement. “Open platforms like Android are essential to innovation, and we will continue to support the open source community to make the mobile experience better for consumers and developers alike.”

Google’s prayer for relief makes that disappointment quite clear. In it, the company asks not only for a judgment dismissing Oracle’s complaint against it with prejudice, but also for a judgment in favor of Google on all of its counterclaims; a declaration that Google has not infringed, contributed to the infringement of, or induced others to infringe, either directly or indirectly, any valid and enforceable claims of the Patents-in-Suit; a declaration that the Patents-in-Suit are invalid; a declaration that Oracle’s claims are barred by the doctrines of laches, equitable estoppel, and/or waiver; a declaration that the Oracle’s claims are barred by the doctrine of unclean hands; a declaration that this case is exceptional and an award to Google of its reasonable costs and expenses of litigation, including attorneys’ fees and expert witness fees; and such other and further relief as this Court may deem just and proper.

Here are three of the more pointed graphs from the answer, followed by a copy of the document in its entirety.

7. Sun came under significant criticism from members of the open source community, including Oracle Corp., for its refusal to fully open source Java. For example, in August of 2006, the Apache Software Foundation (“ASF”), a not-for-profit corporation that provides organizational, legal, and financial support for open source software projects, attempted to obtain a TCK from Sun to verify Apache Harmony’s compatibility with Java. Although Sun eventually offered to open source the TCK for Java SE, Sun included field of use (“FOU”) restrictions that limited the circumstances under which Apache Harmony users could use the software that the ASF created, such as preventing the TCK from being executed on mobile devices. In April of 2007, the ASF wrote an open letter to Sun asking for either a TCK license without FOU restrictions, or an explanation as to why Sun was “protect[ing] portions of Sun’s commercial Java business at the expense of ASF’s open software” and violating “Sun’s public promise that any Sun-led specification [such as Java] would be fully implementable and distributable as open source/free software.” However, Sun continued to refuse the ASF’s requests.

8. Oracle Corp., as a member of the Executive Committee (“EC”) of the Java Community Process (“JCP”), the organization tasked with managing Java standards, voiced the same concerns regarding Sun’s refusal to fully open source the Java platform. Later that year, in December of 2007, during a JCP EC meeting, Oracle Corp. proposed that the JCP should provide “a new, simplified IPR [intellectual property rights] Policy that permits the broadest number of implementations.” At that same meeting, BEA Systems – which at the time was in negotiations that resulted in Oracle Corp. purchasing BEA – proposed a resolution that TCK licenses would be “offered without field of use restrictions . . . enabling the TCK to be used by organizations including Apache.” Oracle Corp. voted in favor of the resolution.

9. Just over a year later, in February of 2009, Oracle Corp. reiterated its position on the open-source community’s expectation of a fully open Java platform when it supported a motion that “TCK licenses must not be used to discriminate against or restrict compatible implementations of Java specifications by including field of use restrictions on the tested implementations or otherwise. Licenses containing such limitations do not meet the requirements of the JSPA, the agreement under which the JCP operates, and violate the expectations of the Java community that JCP specs can be openly implemented.”

UPDATE: Oracle has issued this statement on Google’s answer.

“In developing Android, Google chose to use Java code without obtaining a license. Additionally, it modified the technology so it is not compliant with Java’s central design principle to ‘write once and run anywhere.’ Google’s infringement and fragmentation of Java code not only damages Oracle, it clearly harms consumers, developers and device manufacturers.”

UPDATE: Engadget’s Nilay Patel has a good analysis of Google’s strategy, here — as well as some potential holes in it.

2010.10.04 – Google Answer and Counterclaims _filed_ –

As CEO, you must constantly evaluate all of the members of your team. However, evaluating people against the future needs of the company based on a theoretical view of how they will perform is counterproductive for the following reasons:

So, if you don’t prejudge people’s ability to scale, how do you make the judgment? You should evaluate your team at least once a quarter on all dimensions. Two keys can help you avoid the scale anticipation trap:

• Don’t separate scale from the rest of the evaluation–The relevant question isn’t whether an executive can scale; it’s whether the executive can do the job at the current scale. You should evaluate holistically and this will prevent you from separating scale, which often leads to a prediction of future performance.
• Make the judgment on a relative rather than an absolute scale–Asking yourself whether or not an executive is great can be extremely difficult to answer. A better question is: For this company at this exact point in time, does there exist an executive I can hire who will be better? If my biggest competitor hires that person, how will that impact our ability to win?

In summary, predicting whether or not an executive can scale corrupts your ability to manage, is unfair, and doesn’t work.

Depends on who you ask, of course.

Executives at Veoh say Judge A. Howard Matz has given them a new lease on life, and at least some of the company’s investors are doing some chest-beating. Universal, the world’s largest music label, says it’s confident it will win an appeal.

You can get the same split opinion by asking two different companies that happen to be locked in a similar fight. Executives at Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, which is trying to fend off a copyright suit filed by Viacom (VIA), say the Veoh ruling bolsters their case. You can guess what Viacom says.

The gist of the fight: Universal says Veoh didn’t try hard enough to keep illegally uploaded material off the video site; Veoh says it made a good-faith effort. Matz agreed with Veoh and tossed out Universal’s claims.

Even if you disregard the posturing, it’s fair to say there’s a genuine debate over the ruling’s meaning. Veoh, along with some of my bloggy colleagues, is treating the decision as the final word on Web copyright disputes, or at least those that involve the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

And Matz certainly slapped Universal around. But it’s worth noting that copyright owners have lost Web cases in the Ninth District before, but ultimately won on appeal. Ask Grokster, the now-defunct file-sharing network that dissolved after a 2005 Supreme Court ruling.

You can read all of Matz’s judgment at the bottom of this post. But this excerpt, in which he argues that simply having illegal material on your site isn’t a crime, and neither is knowing about it (at least, in a general sense), gives you a good idea of Matz’s thrust and tone:

No doubt it is common knowledge that most websites that allow users to contribute material contain infringing items. If such general awareness were enough to raise a “red flag,” the DMCA safe harbor would not serve its purpose of “facilitat[ing] the robust development and world-wide expansion of electronic commerce, communications, research, development, and education in the digital age,” and “balanc[ing] the interests of content owners, on-line and other service providers, and information users in a way that will foster the continued development of electronic commerce and the growth of the Internet.”

Legal debate aside, the ruling does give a practical benefit for Veoh. It allows the company to fetch a higher price on the auction block.

CEO Dmitry Shapiro has been shopping the site to bidders over the summer, and as of a few months ago, he was willing to accept less than the $70 million investors like Time Warner (TWX), Goldman Sachs (GS) and former Disney (DIS) CEO Michael Eisner have poured into the site.

Selling a Web video site in 2009 is a tough challenge without a handicap, but the lawsuit was a big one. It was a huge time-and-money suck–Veoh may have spent as much as $6 million fighting the case in the last two years–and more important, the unresolved case was a huge liability. Who wants to buy a lawsuit?

Now, Shapiro says, Veoh’s options include not selling at all. He insists that some of Veoh’s existing backers are willing to recapitalize the company and that new investors might join in as well.

I’ll take him at his word, but if I had to bet, I’d wager that Veoh ends up getting acquired sooner than later. Maybe quite soon–the company has a board meeting today.

Wonder what they’ll talk about?

VEOH –

Still here? How about that? You get a bonus video! (But be warned: Pacino chews up a lot of scenery here, and there is some impassioned cursing.)

The judgment is believed to be the largest anti-spam award to date. Not that it really matters, because MySpace (NWS) is unlikely to collect it. Wallace–who was by some estimates responsible for 80% of the spam on the Net back in his heyday–has rarely paid the judgments against him. Moreover, he has a bad habit of disappearing at the first sign of legal trouble.

And that appears to be exactly what he’s done here. Because the $230 million award given MySpace in this case is a default judgment meted out after Wallace failed to appear in court. “It is … a defendant’s responsibility to respond to discovery, obey court orders and avoid dilatory tactics,” the court wrote in its order. “Taking all of the above factors into account, a default is appropriate. The court finds that Wallace’s noncompliance is due to willfulness, fault or bad faith. … Wallace has had every opportunity to avoid the sanction of default. (He) has never provided any explanation for his behavior to the court.”